[otangu]

Hi,
I wonder if there's a study / documentation to compare the current varieties of Strong Club systems (including canapes) and views on Polish Club vs Strong Club.

Also, I'd like to hear about thoughts on enhanced precision by Ron Beall vs standard modern precision by Daniel Neill.

Recently, I had a look at Transfer Responses To One Club With Relays by Lyle Poe but I don't think it's a pure Strong Club system and will be great to know what others think about it.

Hv a nice day, folks
Ozcan Tangu

[PrecisionL]

Ozcan, I have played a variety of Strong ♣ and Strong ♦ systems including various Polish ♣ versions and Poe's two systems with and without canapé.

My strong preference is Transfer Strong ♣ to 4-cd Majors. I don't know of a book for this exact approach.

My favorite system notes are here: https://bridgewithda...19/07/Ultra.pdf

Precision Today by Berkowitz and Manley is a good resource.

Barcelona Strong ♣ by Assalit & Sabate discusses theory and recommends special replies for 5-5 and 4-4-4-1 hands.

More memory work is required for the following systems:

Pattern Precision by Hawthorne (several books).

The Toad Club inventors won ACBL Flight A pairs several times in the past: https://bridgewithda..._03-23-2011.pdf

Less memory work is required for:

Standard Modern Precision, Neill.
Enhanced Precision, Beall.
Santa Fe Precision, Dawson.
The New Awakening, Gish

Books on canape are scarce:

Modified Italian Canape, Rexford

BFUN, Cadmus

Several French books in my collection.

• Bridge, Nouvelle Methode de Nomination Les Jeux Dicolores, "Le Canape," Albaarran, 1946
• Le Canape Bleu, Antonini, 2009

Distribution is KING, so do not chose a system where the first response to the forcing bid shows controls (Blue Team Club), even Garozzo says that modern bridge has obliterated that approach.

PM if you want further information.

[hrothgar]

I don't know of any good book that does what you want.

Regretfully, bridge isn't well enough developed for people to make really persuasive arguments on these sorts of issues.

FWIW, I am quite fond of MOSCITO

I have my notes on basic symmetric relay in pretty good shape is anyone wants to look them over. (I was making really good progress up until I decided to buy a new house)

[otangu]

PrecisionL, on 2020-July-18, 06:02, said:

Ozcan, I have played a variety of Strong ♣ and Strong ♦ systems including various Polish ♣ versions and Poe's two systems with and without canapé .
My strong preference is Transfer Strong ♣ to 4-cd Majors. I don't know of a book for this exact approach.

My favorite system notes are here: https://bridgewithda...19/07/Ultra.pdf

Precision Today by Berkowitz and Manley is a good resource.

Barcelona Strong ♣ by Assalit & Sabate discusses theory and recommends special replies for 5-5 and 4-4-4-1 hands.

More memory work is required for the following systems:

Pattern Precision by Hawthorne (several books).

The Toad Club inventors won ACBL Flight A pairs several times in the past: https://bridgewithda..._03-23-2011.pdf

Less memory work is required for:

Standard Modern Precision, Neill.
Enhanced Precision, Beall.
Santa Fe Precision, Dawson.
The New Awakening, Gish

Books on canape are scarce:

Modified Italian Canape, Rexford

BFUN, Cadmus

Several French books in my collection.

Distribution is KING, so do not chose a system where the first response to the forcing bid shows controls (Blue Team Club), even Garozzo says that modern bridge has obliterated that approach.

PM if you want further information.

Actually, I'm not looking for a book but a study by someone who's documented differences among varieties of Strong Club system and maybe some views on Polish club vs Strong Club.
Thanks, anyway

[mycroft]

This is really Top-of-my-head (and I'm familiar with, but do not play, Polish Club), but:

• Most strong clubs are now Precision variants, so 10-15 vs 16+ (16 BAL is a special case that is handled differently by different flavours).
  
• Any strong diamonds in the world are usually stronger (because of the less space), so say 11-bad 17 vs shapely 17+.
  
• In all cases, some other openers are mangled to allow this (in standard Precision, 1♦ becomes ambiguous, 2♣ is very rare (but can be really effective when it does come up), and something has to take the 4=4=1=4s, 4=4=0=5s and the (43)=1=5s (either 1♦, 2♣, 2♦, or some combination). Strong Diamond systems either totally hang the club suit, making 1♣ artificial with some major suit hands, or pull the same munging as Precision 1♦).
  
• Two-way clubs common in Swedish play put a common weak hand into the 'strong' club (the one I played [mumble] years ago added 10-13 BAL). The intent is to take away the "bid with garbage" defence common to normal strong clubs. They lose space, of course, to 1-way strong clubs because they have to resolve the "I'm weak" (and responder's "don't care, I'm strong") as well as everything else, in exchange.
  
• Polish clubs take it one step further: by putting "weak BAL and semi-BAL with clubs" and "medium primary clubs" hands into the strong club (and raising the minimum strength of the strong variant), they make it a very common opener. They have to spend even more space resolving the types (which is why the strong hand is stronger than Precision), but they are even less vulnerable to preemption. In fact, I'm told a great "never play against Polish Club" defence to Polish Club is "assume it's a weak NT and play your defence to that." In exchange, they don't get the really limited 1M openers, and they can't push down to the 10s and good 9s the way Precision can. But 11-18 is still somewhat limited, and they don't have to sacrifice any other bid to get it (in fact, 1♦ is much better defined than American standard!)

Not sure what you're looking for, but the base is that all these systems are designed to make it easier when we *don't* open our strong bid, by removing a lot of cruft to handle "could we have game opposite my garbage 7?" 1M auctions in particular tend to be much more straight-forward when there is no chance for slam, much less revealing, and we compete to our stopping point about half-a-round faster (so we win the competitive auction more often, sometimes not letting the opponents get in their lead-director). The differences lie mostly in what we decide to take out of those calls, what ambiguity we're willing to put where, how resistant we want our strong bid to be against "don't care about our game" overcalls, and how much we have to scramble our strong bid system to pay for all the above.